When The Game Was Called Base Ball

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 19, 2007

Jim Bouton wanted fans at his vintage baseball games to really know what it was like to watch the sport in the 19th century.

So in addition to the old-style uniforms and pillbox caps, Bouton, a former major league pitcher, had actors dressed as Keystone Kops go onto the field before a game and threaten to shut down the whole endeavor.

''They were railing that the game must be stopped,'' Bouton said. ''Baseball cannot be played in town on Sundays.''

Other cranks -- those are the fans, in 19th century lingo -- were surprised to see the Woman's Christian Temperance Union picketing against the evils of alcohol.

''We also have a gambler routine, where actors with wads of money try to talk to players during the game and they get chased off,'' Bouton said in a telephone interview.

''It's much more than a vintage baseball game. It's a piece of living history.''

He added: ''That's one of the nice things about it. It combines theater and history with unscripted sports competition. We're trying to re-create as closely as we can what it was like to watch a baseball game in the 1800s.''

The Vintage Base Ball Federation -- the two-word spelling was dominant in the 19th century -- is playing host to its first World Series this weekend in Westfield, Mass. One year after Bouton founded the federation, the Westfield Wheelmen are playing in a double-elimination tournament against the Amador County (Calif.) Crushers, the Hartford Senators and the Stars of Sheridan (Mich.).

About 500 fans were expected to pay as little as $5 admission to the old-time ballpark, which has a hand-operated scoreboard and barn-wood billboards with vintage-style sponsor logos. To add to the atmosphere, the staff wears costumes of white shirts and dark pants with suspenders or vests and newsboy caps.

The World Series is being played largely by the rules in effect in 1886, after overhand pitching was widely adopted, but before oversized and padded gloves. The hidden-ball trick and spitballs are common, it takes seven balls for a walk, and foul balls do not count as strikes.

''That's brutal if you're a catcher,'' said Dan Genovese, the Wheelmen captain, founder and catcher and an author of two books about the history of baseball in Westfield. ''The time period that we're playing by, you can see how the rules began to evolve. We know so much today. As a modern fan, we have 160 years of understanding the rules.''

Genovese played baseball from Little League to college, but his career peaked when he reached the Babe Ruth World Series as a 13-year-old.

Many of the players in the vintage game were college and high school athletes who enjoy the competition but mostly simply like to play ball. There is a rule limiting former minor leaguers to three a team, but that has not been a problem.

''They're good young ballplayers,'' said Bouton, who won 21 games for the Yankees in 1963 and is best known as the author of the clubhouse tell-all book ''Ball Four.'' ''I think they're enjoying the role. I think they really like not having to have winning be the only thing that matters. I just think it's more fun for them. And suddenly they're back in front of a crowd again. So they really like that part of it.''

Some rules from other eras have been adopted or modified to speed up the game. Among them: The batter is out if his foul fly ball is caught on one bounce, and on a foul grounder, the base runner must speed back to his original base or he can be forced out.

Not to mention that the first World Series was not actually played until 1903, when the National League champion, Pittsburgh, played the American League champion, Boston. The first interleague championship dates to 1884, however, when the N.L.'s Providence Grays beat the New York Metropolitans of the American Association.